You’re listening to BiggerPockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you’re here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you’re in the right place.

Stay tuned and be sure to join the million of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online.

Josh: Hey, what’s going everybody, this is Josh Dorkin, host of the BiggerPockets podcast. Here with Brandon Turner in the flesh. What’s going on Brandon?

Brandon: Hey’s what’s going on everyone. This is Brandon Turner, cohost of the BiggerPockets podcast here with Josh. How are you doing?

Josh: Are you mocking me?

Brandon: I don’t mock. How are you doing?

Josh: Such a nice guy. I’m good, man. I’m good. Excited about the warming weather. You know, summer’s almost here. Kids are about to get out of school. Things are going well.

Brandon: You’re looking forward to you kids getting out of school?

Josh: Yes, why not? Why wouldn’t I?

Brandon: Because they’re going to be coloring all over the walls again.

Josh: My kids don’t climb on the walls. I don’t.

Brandon: I said, “Coloring.” Different, Crayons, right?

Josh: Oh coloring, oh.

Brandon: Yes, you know,

Josh: Yes, yes.

Brandon: We talk about that in the show later, that’ll make more sense.

Josh: Yes, well, you know, whatever, we’ll deal with it later. We’ll deal with it later. No, I’m excited man, so looking forward to the warming period here.

Brandon: Good, good for you.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon: I got six more months ‘til that hits Washington.

Josh: I don’t think it ever hits Washington.

Brandon: I don’t think so.

Josh: Yes, we got to get you out of there.

Brandon: I don’t know, I like my—I like my green, unlike your brown there in the middle of the country. I’ll live with it, anyway. Let’s go to the Quick Tips before people leave our show.

Josh: Yes, anyone bored yet? Anyone bored yet? Alright, guys so today’s Quick Tip, check it out. In the forums, if you read a really good thread or if you read a post from somebody that that’s really valuable, please go ahead and click the vote button to let the person know that it was good. Clicking the vote is kind of like a “Like” button on Facebook. It makes people feel good. They get an email saying that somebody thought it was worthwhile so please go ahead and do it. Ultimately, what it does is it tells our computer algorithms that this person is providing value to the community so get out there and acknowledge those folks who are putting the efforts. That’s today’s Quick Tip.

Brandon: Good tip, alright.

Josh: I want to let people know, this is show 69 of the BiggerPockets podcast and they can check out the show notes at BiggerPockets.com/Show69. If you have any questions or want to refer to any of the steps that we talk about, you can do that on the show notes. Also, if you’re listening and have not yet rated or reviewed the show, please jump on iTunes and go ahead and do that. It does help spread the word.

Alright guys, so let me bring on our guest, Mr. Brandon Krieg. Brandon is a wholesaler and flipper primarily. We’re going to talk about a lot of cool stuff. We’re going to talk about knowing when to quit your job and actually making that happen. We’re going to talk about some unique marketing strategies that I might guess most investors listening aren’t currently doing. You’ll definitely want to hang around for that and of course, remember, jump in and check out the show notes that I had mentioned before. Brandon is a smart, savvy guy, he is a good marketer and no matter what your strategy or focus is, definitely want to check it out so with that why don’t we bring him on?

Josh: Alright, Brandon, welcome to the show, man, good to have you here and I’m not talking about Turner. I’m talking about the new guy, Krieg.

Brandon Krieg: Hey, yes, I’m very very happy to be here. It’s beautiful, beautiful day here on the lake so.

Brandon: Nice.

Brandon Krieg: It’s awesome to be talking to you guys.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: Nice day on the lake, what lake is that?

Brandon Krieg: It’s called Long Lake, it’s in a very small town called Delton, Michigan and I will personally a $50 gift card if you can actually identify that on the map so, awesome.

Brandon: Another rural guy, right?

Josh: Another Michigan guy, fabulous.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: We’ve had a number of Michigan guys.

Josh: We have.

Brandon: Yes, this is our first Brandon though we’ve ever had. I mean two weeks ago, we had another Josh, so. Today, we’re going to complicate things.

Brandon Krieg: It’s not going to be confusing at all.

Brandon: No, no.

Josh: Excited, very excited,

Brandon: Yes, very cool, alright, why don’t get to your story and kind of hear how you got started and where you came from so I guess why don’t we start, very beginning. How did you get into real estate? Like what were you doing before and how did you get into it?

Brandon Krieg: Sure, well real estate for me really has always been about freedom. Whether for me that was a combination of you know, living the life that I wanted with financial freedom and then as I got older and met my wife and you know, we started talking that extended it got to a figured definition. You know, became for the whole family, much more than just about myself.

Brandon: Yes.

Josh: What—really quick, you know, I don’t think we’ve ever actually asked this, but what is you know, what does that mean to you? What does financial freedom actually mean to you?

Brandon Krieg: Yes, it’s—financial freedom for me means the ability to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, in the way I want to do it. If that makes sense. I’m using a lot of i’s but again, this becomes very much a we.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: At this point with my wife and I, but that could mean taking a trip, going out, going to Italy and staying there for two months and that being fine. It could mean not doing any of those things at all. It could mean going to my future daughter’s soccer games and not having to worry about coaching and being late to a business meeting or something like that afterwards. It’s really just the opportunity to do what we want rather than being constricted to a timeframe.

Josh: What—and without worrying about money, ultimately.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, exactly. I mean you could do that and you know and sleep on a piece of cardboard. You know, it’s not exactly it either so I think.

Josh: It’s not what you’re looking for right?

Brandon Krieg: Yes, real estate, it seemed to me one of those few things that could actually get you both of those in the same way, down the same path.

Brandon: Yes.

Josh: How did you figure that out? I mean I think, you know, those people who aren’t familiar with real estate may not have that realization right? You know, they’re like, yes, well you know, what do I do, I want freedom. How do I find it? How did you decide that real estate was the path?

Brandon Krieg: Well, I actually started, I think my path down started in high school, just picking up a random books from my parents’ basement. You know, the Millionaire Next Door or Lead Field, one of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books that I bought from a library book sale, you know. I just started reading all these different things and I think I was drawn to them because I always felt like I had been just a little bit different than a lot of the people around me and I think once I really started getting into it.

Josh: There’s a cure for that by the way.

Brandon Krieg: Once I really started getting into it, I realized there’s so much that you can do with real estate. I mean you make it a job where you’re very active and doing very well with things like flipping, probably all of that or you can take it very passively. Well, I mean well not quite as passively as you would like probably, but with you know buying, owning houses and getting all those wonderful advantages so once I started investigating, real estate versus stocks versus running your own business, which I’ve also done, is actually extremely exhausting. Anybody who’s ever done it.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: You know, looking at all these different way, it just seemed like real estate had the best opportunity to grow and really involve financially and in terms of freedom, really provided the best avenue.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: Right on.

Brandon: You know, one thing, we always ask that question at the end of this show; which we’ll ask later, but what sets apart successful people, but I just want to point out that like what I’ve noticed time and time again on the show, when we ask people how you got started is I would say 90% to 95% of everyone started it with a book of some kind, like reading right. Right like.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, definitely.

Brandon: Reading is just so important that I don’t know what it does, but when you’re reading a book like when I think of my life, all the greatest times of growth, where I’ve grown the most as a person have been in times where I read a lot.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, definitely.

Brandon: Yes, so I think it’s very important just to.

Josh: Reading is fundamental.

Brandon: Reading is fundamental so if you are somebody.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon: Who doesn’t ever read and you want to get into real estate, I think that’s something you want to do is start reading, you know.

Brandon Krieg: Another alternative, actually to reading if you’re really just not a reader. If it’s really just not your thing, someone recently actually, I got into more audio books.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I find myself living in Delton, Michigan, which is between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo on the west side of the state. Between those two, I do a lot of driving to actually go to houses and work on rehabs and things like that so with that, with audio books, with podcasts like we’ve got you know, you can actually get a lot of that advantage even if you don’t have time.

Brandon: I agree.

Brandon Krieg: To sit down and do it so audio books—of these great classics that everyone always brings up on the show.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Is a really good way to go I think.

Josh: Nice, nice.

Brandon: I agree.

Josh: There you go. Alright, moving on from the captain obvious question that Brandon decided to throw at you. What do you do man? What’s your path in real estate?

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Josh: What do you focus on?

Brandon Krieg: Well, the beginning of the path was I—quote from one of the Jim Collins books was “fire bullets than cannon balls.” I think it’s one of the newest one, but the bullets were everything. It was seller financing, wholesaling, rehabbing, mobile homes, really whatever I could do, whatever I could get a foot a hold in, whatever I could start to figure out. I would try, which is good in a lot of ways. I figured out a lot of what I like and don’t like and all of that, but most recently, I’ve really settled into rehabbing homes so buying them, fixing them, and selling them and also wholesaling things. I do a lot of direct marketing.

Josh: Got you.

Brandon Krieg: I kick those other ones back to other people.

Josh: You’re pursuit of financial freedom has found you working a job for yourself.

Brandon Krieg: Yes it has. Yes it has. You start from me, you know that path is process. You know, it’s not like in six months I could say, “Hey, okay, sweet. I don’t have to work anymore. Awesome.”

Josh: Right.

Brandon Krieg: I mean if somebody has pulled it off, kudos and I want to hear them on the next podcast. That would be awesome.

Josh: Yes, me too. I want to hear the guy on the podcast who got rich in six months with that system. Like I swear, I would kill to hear that.

Brandon: Yes.

Josh: You’re not going to find him.

Brandon Krieg: Here’s my real story.

Josh: Crickets, crickets, crickets, but you know.

Brandon Krieg: My real story is there was a pop up ad that came up and it said, “Be rich with four hours a week of work in 60 days.” I click on it. It totally worked and no I don’t have to do anything.

Josh: Awesome.

Brandon Krieg: It’s an amazing story.

Brandon: Great story.

Josh: Alright, so you’ve done all these different things, right. You’ve bounced around. You’ve tried all of these paths. When did you start in real estate? I mean, it’s pretty recent, right?

Brandon Krieg: Yes, yes, it is pretty recent. I sort of fiddled before then. You know, I had another company and another couple of companies actually before I really got into real estate. That really took up a lot of nights and weekends before. It wasn’t until the latest one stopped happening that I was really able to dig in and that was only about two years ago.

Josh: Okay so.

Brandon Krieg: Last actually.

Josh: Two years ago or last year you jump in. How many deals have you done since then because I know you’ve been busy?

Brandon Krieg: Yes, a little bit over a dozen. I’ve been involved in in some way so I’m not the—I’ve done 200 deals and can tell you how everything works, but it’s good progress so far.

Brandon: That’s what I love about the podcast that we you know, you know we interview those guys once in awhile that have 200-300-500 deals.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: Then we did the guys that have done a dozen deals and I think the insight that we get from both is extremely beneficial because the guys who are doing two or 300 deals don’t remember necessarily, yes, what it was like to do the first and the second, third, and that’s what we want to talk about today is.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: How did you do that first and second and third deal so.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Brandon: Speaking of that, let’s go to that. I mean, what was your very first deal. What did it look like?

Brandon Krieg: First deal, was—well I did probably—I would say hundreds of things that didn’t work. A lot of which I just started with no marketing budget and found—you know, tried to call every person on Craigslist saying, you know, hey, you’ve got hours for sale. Sweet let me take a look at it. I’ll make you an offer. While extremely unproductive, very inefficient. I did learn a lot and got really comfortable talking to people.

Brandon: That’s actually really important. I mean I’m terrible at that because I never did that. I never cold called. I’ve never done that in my life so.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, it’s brutal so. It’s a hard knocks school life. When I first started I was really looking for seller financing deals. That was sort of the first thing that I really dove into, started looking. It up the first and my first deal ended up being a rehab actually.

Brandon: Okay.

Brandon Krieg: It worked out really well so that first one was a tax sale. A woman owned the place free and clear, but owed back taxes and was going to lose it to the local government in three days. When she talked to me, which was actually a real shame because had she, you know, gotten in touch with me even a few weeks before there was any number of things we could have done. We ended up getting this condo, which had two bedroom. Condo in Clinton, Michigan, not Clinton township there. They’re two different things. Just this little place and you know I know people say, you know paint and carpet rehab. It wasn’t right there, but it’s about as close as I have realistically seen. I mean the woman had smoked a lot. She was a chain smoker—for probably ten years. You know, a lot of clean up and fixing, but really minor things and I learned so much from that deal. It was crazy.

Josh: First, how did you find the deal?

Brandon Krieg: Sure, first it was direct marketing. By that point, I had been sick of digging in and cold calling people for awhile so I think that one was from—I do a whole lot of direct marketing so I believe that one was from Ad Words, from Google I think. If I’m remembering specifically.

Josh: Okay and we could talk more about the different direct marketing stuff that you do so you got this deal and it’s this woman who’s going to lose her house in three days right?

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: What happened? I mean you know you said, there’s more you could have done had you had more time.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Josh: What could you have done had you had more time and ultimately, what did you end up doing to actually get the deal.

Brandon Krieg: Sure, well I think having had more time. I wish actually, I would have been able to do more for her because this being the first one that I actually you know closed on. I had you know few options and you know a lack of knowledge really of what to do so what I could have done probably was investigate more options. Get her more financing, looking into creative financing, all these different things you know start the process.

Get an extension, something like that to actually get her more than we ended up getting her, but in the end, we basically just squared it away with taxes and helped her with a little bit of moving money to get out so I ended up partnering with a friend. Very good friend of mine and we split the deal 50/50. He came in and provided the funding for it and I and we both dug in and fixed it up and ended up doing pretty well on it so.

Brandon: Nice, nice. Let’s about that a little bit, the partnership thing.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: You would recommend that I would assume like that it worked out well.

Brandon Krieg: I do actually. I think that I have advantage of having a very great group of friends and family that I’ve known. These are friends that I’ve known since we were ten years old.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I think. We trust each other like family and so working with somebody like that, where you know you’ve been through the ups and downs already. You know, you’ve been through rough the patches and dealt with it and come through the other side. If you can a relationship like that then it’s actually worked out for me every time that I’ve done it so friends and family can be a really great resource.

Josh: That’s great.

Brandon Krieg: If you have a strong relationship.

Josh: I may have dozed off for a second here, but.

Brandon Krieg: I’m kind of boring. I ramble a little bit.

Josh: Yes, it’s all good. No, I really—I got really excited because I noticed I’m on a call with Brandon and Brandon and they’re both sitting with drum kits behind them.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, yes we are.

Josh: I got wowed by this weird thing. Alright.

Brandon: Yes, punk rock.

Josh: Yes, there you go so tell me how did you end up structuring this partnership on this first deal?

Brandon Krieg: Sure, actually, this is something I wouldn’t really recommend. Looking back on it, it probably makes sense to actually have a written agreement, but I because we had three and a half.

Josh: Aah. Come on. Who needs to write?

Brandon Krieg: Who needs to actually lay things out all the way? Basically, I said he had contacted me before and we had talked about some potential deals that ended up falling through, bad inspections, you know, whatever. He had said he really wanted to do it so I called him and said, okay man, we got three days. If you want in, here’s what we got so I went through over and he showed up to closing three days later.

The title company did an amazing job, pulling everything, all the records, getting everything together and we closed on the house and as we’re driving to it, he’s like you know man, I must trust you a lot considering I’ve never seen this place and about ten pictures of it and I just bought a house. Yes, and then we drove over there, figured out a plan and went. We actually never even had a structured agreement. It was all just handshake deals and knowing each other long enough where we could pull that off.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I don’t recommend—I mean it worked out fine.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Again, it was all fine, but if you’re looking for recommendations, just even if it’s basic, wrap something up because I mean it could have turned south in a hundred ways. I’m sure a lot of people could have pointed out, but.

Josh: Ultimately, the government is going to take this thing away from them correct?

Brandon Krieg: Correct?

Josh: What—are you acquiring the property for the full price of the property or are you acquiring the property for what’s owed. Tell us how that works exactly.

Brandon Krieg: Sure, sure, sure so she owned the property free and clear by this point. She had three years of back taxes on the place.

Josh: Wow.

Brandon Krieg: Which for this place, again, pretty and that was the line you know, I looked at all the documentation here in Michigan. They said basically if you’re not paid by April first, you’re done. We’re taking the place, no recourse, no nothing. It’s gone. Looking at that, we paid—so with the title company, we coordinated it so we would bring a check for the remainder of the taxes and then plus a little bit of moving money $500 or $1,000, something like that. For the woman to be able to move in with some family that she had been wanting to move into with already and then they closed it all up, taxes got paid off, then it got put in our name.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: She walked away ultimately, getting out instead of losing it completely, she got into the place. I mean, her, the benefit to her was you got her into the property that she needed to move into.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, she had been really stuck.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Really wanted to get out, but you know, and she was like I don’t want the police to come to my house, but I don’t even have enough money to make it to my sister’s place.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, we were able to you know, get her there at least. I wish we could have done more, but.

Josh: Alright, so what was the amount in back taxes owed and what’s the property worth today? Or what did you turn it over. It sounds like you flipped it so what did you?

Brandon Krieg: Yes, we—the total purchase price was $6,500.

Josh: Okay.

Brandon Krieg: On the property and that was the back taxes and what we gave to her and we ended up selling it. It was on the market for two days and we sold it for 37.

Josh: Nice.

Brandon: Nice and you said,

Brandon Krieg: It was three, seven, five, I think.

Brandon: It was basically paint and carpet. Do you remember how much total you put into it?

B3: I believe $4,300.

Josh: Wow.

Brandon: That is a nice flip.

Josh: That is a nice flip and that was found through direct mail marketing, yes.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, direct marketing, absolutely.

Josh: Right, on.

Brandon: Very good.

Josh: Awesome, awesome, cool, alright so that’s not a bad start.

Brandon Krieg: Oh yes that’s well you know, start is.

Josh: Then it went downhill.

Brandon Krieg: Then it all went terrible, no. It actually, that was really nice even while that one was getting fixed up, other deals started to materialize and come into play. Then I was able to do you know, some other thing.

Brandon: Well, let’s talk about like—what came next? Was it more flips or you said, you do wholesaling, you’ve done some.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, yes, so I think about five or six days after that closing, I got a lead for a mobile home. I think that was the next one. With mobile homes, I had always said, “Okay, it’s not really something I do. I know it’s a specialized field, I’m not really comfortable with it. I can’t really help you. Sorry.” Something along those lines to people that would contact me with those leads through direct marketing.

Josh: I got one the other day that I said that exact same thing to.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: Somebody called. I have a Facebook ad going right now and somebody called on it.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: They got—I’m like I don’t even know what to do.

Brandon Krieg: I don’t even know what to do.

Brandon: Yes, like what do I.

Brandon Krieg: You know, I stop, you know, I’m all hype on confidence. You know, I just closed my first one, five days later, I’m about to do a second. You know, getting all excited and so I realized I was like okay, well look at this way, if this were my sister, if this were my cousin, if this were my uncle, and they were stuck in this situation, what would I try to do you know. Somebody says, “Hey, I hear you do real estate, can you help me try to figure something out?”

What would I do? I—it was very very simple method, I just Googled whatever terms I would use to sell a mobile home, “sell my mobile home fast,” whatever and I found a few people here in Michigan that do deal with mobile homes regularly and I just gave them a call. I said, “Look, I’ve got this lead. It came through, you know, it seems to be pretty good, but granted I don’t know very much about mobile homes so what would you do in this situation?” They said, “Well, you found the lead, so why don’t you just get it under contract and I’ll buy it from you.” He’s like, “Do you have any pictures?” Shot him over pictures, he’s like, yes, if you price it about there, we should do okay on it. Sign it up, a few days later at the first mobile home wholesale, which was an interesting one.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: What was interesting about it?

Brandon Krieg: It’s just—it was so quick and easy. I think we did it on the hood of somebody’s car, I mean, you know. It like—it was—just figuring out like, wow, had I actually tr—you know, you thought and stopped and said, “Okay, why don’t I actually try to do something with this six months ago?” I could have probably done this five times in the interim.

Brandon: Yes. Well, you know, you said two really interesting things I want to touch on there, first was that you said earlier, when you talk to that person, you asked yourself, like if this was my sister, brother, or uncle, aunt.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: What would I? Like how would I help them out. I love that. I’ve never heard anybody say that before, but if you think of real estate like that as I’m helping this person, their family, how would I help them if I could. Even if I don’t make—I mean like, even thinking like what if I don’t make a profit.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: How do I help them? If you approach it like that, I think that’s great. I think if more investors did that, we’d have a lot you know, better name in the industry. That—there’s going to be people that.

Josh: Oh yes.

Brandon: Yes, I just think, how do I—how do I you know.

Brandon Krieg: What’s in it for me?

Brandon: Get the most money? What is in it for me? How do I destroy this person the fastest that I can?

Josh: I’m going to disagree for a second there.

Brandon Krieg: It’s brutal.

Josh: Because you know, I mean we’ve talked to a lot of people in this podcast and I think the folks that I deem to be credible, that we’ve met, talked to, that we link up with a lot. The people who have sustainable businesses, I think have that approach.

Brandon: I think so too. Yes.

Josh: You know, I think if you’re going to take the “I’m going to take advantage of people approach,” I don’t know, I kind of feel like you’re life line in the business isn’t going to be as long because at some point, it’s going to catch back up with you.

Brandon Krieg: I, 100% agree. I think that you know, if you first of all. To me, that all starts with honesty. You know, with somebody that’s with you know, colleagues that you’re working with. It’s with you know, your family and friends. Where are you? You know, they—you know, I feel like—one of the issues I think is there’s a whole lot of “fake it ‘til you make it” which has in some ways a good benefit. I think the negative part.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Is from people start inflating everything too much or they make promises they can’t keep.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Then end up just leaving somebody you know stuck in the mud.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: In so I made a promise to not do that a long time ago and I think it’s really helped a lot.

Brandon: Yes.

Josh: That’s great.

Brandon: Hey, the second thing that was really interesting there, I think we should touch on is that you said had you—had known it would be that easy you could have probably done a lot more deals before that. You know right so.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, absolutely.

Brandon: I mean that’s kind of convicting for me too, like I said, I got that lead for mobile home and then like, I don’t know whatever, I’m not—it’s not my thing. I don’t do mobile homes.

Brandon Krieg: Yes. Totally.

Brandon: I just kind of left it alone, I’m like, now I’m thinking, man, I should have at least made a couple of phone calls.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: Like who’s buying—that’s a great tip. Go on Google, search for, you know, find the guys that are trying to rank for those terms of “we buy mobile homes fast” or whatever. Yes and so.

Brandon Krieg: If you go on Google, you know or Bing, if you’re a Microsoft person or Yahoo. I don’t care, you know whatever.

Josh: Or BiggerPockets.

Brandon Krieg: The marketplace I hear. That’s actually a really great place. I don’t mean to you know, I hope I’m not dumping at all.

Josh: No, I’m just saying just in case the listeners don’t know who they’re listening to here, I mean you know, yes.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, if you go on there you know, well, BiggerPockets is a great example, you know, you see you know the people that are there that if you have a conversation with somebody or you know you find that they’re putting money into their marketing. You know and they’re on BiggerPockets and they’re making regular forum posts and they’re helping people out. You can tell that they’re serious about their business and so if you can hook up with people that are serious about whatever it is. Anything you either want to learn or get help it, whether it be mobile homes like in this case—you know you can really. It’s things like BiggerPockets, it really helps you identify who those people are and then you’ll get really good advice instead of you know, just only give me $30 grand and then I’ll you some advice.

Brandon: Yes.

Josh: Well even on the deals side, right, I mean, you’re looking for.

Brandon Krieg: Absolutely.

Josh: Mobile home guy. You just, you know, you can actually do a search and find you know, mobile home Michigan and figure out who does it and link up those people.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: No, listen, I mean, it’s good points and I liked what you said before about you know, the credibility aspect. I mean it’s something that I push and have pushed, kind of from day one with the site. You know, I think and I think we, as a community need to strive to do better and be better representatives of ourselves so to speak.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: I love that you know. I love talking to people who are doing it. I hate when I talk to somebody I’m like, “Oh, I like this guy, man, but he is shady.”

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: It’s always disappointing to me because I’m like, you know, people are going to look up to him. He’s smart, but you know, he runs his business in a way that’s not quite on the up and up.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: It’s going to make us all look like of dirty.

Brandon Krieg: I think that you know, getting into a different side of it a little bit is—if you actually get into wholesaling a little bit, there’s all kinds of grey areas with wholesaling. You know, where you can do things, you know, honestly and straight forward or you can do them a little on the shady side.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I mean to me, it’s no contest you know, if you’re not being straight with people then you’re not doing it the right way.

Josh: Got you. Alright, so we got this wholesale deal that fell in your lap that you did on the hood of the car.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: Yes, you know, the first two deals are you’re on a roll here, man. It’s easy, life is good, and then—I mean was there a brick wall moment? Did you hit any kind of trials and tribulations with any of these deals as you’re kind of experimenting and trying to learn your way?

Brandon Krieg: Definitely, definitely, I think I have more brick walls than slip slides that’s for sure. The first one I was so excited, I remember this was the first deal that I successfully got under contract. Remember, I said I started about two years ago, this was in December so 12/12/12, was the day we got the sale, always sticks out in my head.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: Nice.

Brandon Krieg: Get this thing. It looks great. Everything is awesome and get this inspector to come in and I want this thing so bad. I want it to work. I’ve been essentially doing this nights and weekends, getting home at 5:36 o’clock, calling people, going you know, spending money on gas, I don’t really have. You know, trying to get these deals, running into it, and the inspector says, “I mean, you can do it if you want, but you know, you’re going to fall down flat on your face.”

Having those moments and even right before that first rehab came in, getting to that spot where it was just so dark. I remember sitting there with my wife one night I—and just being like, “What am I doing?” Like, I have now been doing this for months and doing it right. I mean doing marketing, doing hard, following up with people, tons of leads, all kinds of stuff. Am I just awful, I mean you know, what is wrong with me, why can’t I make this work?

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: That was rough.

Josh: Interesting, well you know, I don’t think you’re alone with that and for the people listening, if you’re in that situation, where you’re out there and you’re struggling and you’re trying to do marketing and you’re trying to find deals and you set criteria and you’re just either not finding deals or you’re finding deals and you’re talking to people and it’s not working out. It can be incredibly frustrating so what did you do to take a riff on Brandon’s question about you know, what successful investors do. What did you do to kind of get you over the mental hump and you know to avoid just giving up because it would have been real easy to say you know what I’ve put six months in, I haven’t gotten anywhere. It’s a wrap.

Brandon Krieg: Oh, we would have been incredibly easy like I really wanted to do it.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Honestly.

Josh: Oh sure. Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I think the first thing is I have a fantastic support system. I mean my wife throughout this has just been just incredible. I mean, always so supportive, but realistic at the same time. That was a huge help and honestly, I think a big thing with me is for awhile now I’ve really tried to flood myself with positive messages. Whether that be books, tapes, it’s a combination of really eliminating a lot of.

Josh: Do they make tape still?

Brandon Krieg: Yes. I think so. Well, I had a ’91 Toyota pick up and that thing didn’t have AC, but it had a tape player so I rocked the heck out of it, late Seals, late Earl Nightingale, ‘80s stuff so.

Brandon: Nice.

Brandon Krieg: Just so you know, basically anything that I could get my hands on. Any kind of I mean now, these folks are common you know, now that I’ve found this community. Before I found it, you know, I just was sort of doing this all on my own. You know, positive thinking books. You know, good movies. You know, I was reading Games of Thrones and I love reading it, but I actually stopped myself because I realized that it was really kind of bumming me out the whole time that I was reading it.

Josh: Nice.

Brandon Krieg: Everyone was dying.

Brandon: That is like the most depressing books. I’ve read every one of them.

Brandon Krieg: I know.

Brandon: Yes. Terribly depressing.

Brandon Krieg: They’re like awful. You know, so I was like.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: You know what, I can’t handle this right now so basically to push through, another really important thing was I actually looked at it really logically. I was doing a job, which was fine and good and I had great people that I was working with, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Logically, I thought, well, what happens if you quit. You know, you are—you just stay where you’re at.

Stay on this track that goes nowhere you want to be. What’s the point of quitting almost? It’s a strange phrase, but what’s the point if it’s not—if staying what you’re doing and not continuing on gets you somewhere that you don’t want to be. Then why quit? Because at least if you don’t quit, you have a chance to get where you want to be rather than being guaranteed to get somewhere that you don’t like.

Brandon: Yes.

Josh: I have no idea what you just said.

Brandon Krieg: Alright, well, let me try to boil it down.

Josh: No. I—listen, no you’re. I mean you’re saying—just kind of get out there. I mean you got to take a chance at some point, right?

Brandon Krieg: It’s really, you know, for me, I had to use logic to overcome it.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: It was like well let’s look at the pros and cons here.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: If I quit, I don’t get it so.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I won’t be happy with it.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I might as well keep going.

Josh: Well your logic didn’t make any damn sense to me.

Brandon Krieg: It made sense in my head.

Josh: However, if it works for you then that’s great. Alright, so are you now—are you a fulltime investor or?

Brandon Krieg: I am, yes I am. It’s very fun thing and things speed up immensely when you can actually make it fulltime.

Brandon: Yes.

Josh: Now, did you just quit your job then to get into the investing thing or we’re doing it while you were working and then at some point you said, “Alright, I’m starting to do okay, let me get out.”

Brandon Krieg: Yes, it’s the second one. I had been working—I was working a fulltime job and it was nights and weekends for a little bit over a year. My wife was actually doing a masters program and she found a job over here in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which is about two hours from where we had been living in Ann Arbor so I wasn’t able to actually keep the job that I was going to have anyway. It was almost this natural transition of well, “Let’s give it a try. I have to find a new job, anyway.”

Let’s dig in, go for it. I’ve already had, you know, some good successes. Let’s make a jump so my wife and I agreed. We’ll try this for three months and if you don’t have enough momentum going then you know, we’ll figure something else out. Find another job. Do something else, but fortunately, the momentum caught and we’re able to keep doing it so it’s excellent.

Josh: Cool.

Brandon: Alright, what do you think, what would be your suggestion for somebody who wants to know when the right time to quit their job is? Like when should somebody say, “Okay, I’m quitting. I’m fulltime now.” How prepared do they have to be?

Brandon Krieg: I would say it would definitely help to have some deals under your belt. That—I think that number’s really going to vary per person some people will feel comfortable with two or three. Some people will only feel comfortable with ten-20. That’s really up to your personal comfort level. For me, the stars kind of aligned on it, but in turning it you know, trying to get it to somebody else. It’s—you know, also realize, the lights are never all going to be green. You know, if you’re trying to get from you know, Michigan to San Diego, you know you’re never going to have all green lights.

Josh: That’s good.

Brandon Krieg: All the way so at some point, if this is something that you’re committed and you really want to do it. You just have to make a leap. On the flip side, I would say just make sure you’re not going to throw your family into the ditch to do it.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: We were at a good place where we had enough savings. You know, put away where we could be fine and we knew that my wife was working and walking into a job so we wouldn’t be really up the creek without a paddle if it didn’t go well. It did go well, but we had enough of a safety net to make that.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon: Yes, definitely, definitely. Well, I think that’s really good advice. I mean I think a lot of people struggle with when to quit your job and when not to. I know I quit my job three times, two times, something like that.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Brandon: I mean even now, now I’m at BiggerPockets because you know I don’t know. I like working a job, I guess more than I like not working a job, but I don’t know.

Josh: I was getting worried there, I was.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: Yes, no.

Josh: Wondering if you were about to quit your job again.

Brandon: No, I mean like, I quit it the last time. You know, I said I’m never going to have a day job again and then I did real estate and then I got enough, you know, cash flow to not have to work or even have to invest in real estate anymore and I was like, well, now what do I do? I’m bored to death so.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: I mean, I just—your life changes as you go through it and it definitely changed for me a lot in the last couple of years so. Let’s move on enough about me, but we want to talk about marketing because I.

Josh: Let’s talk about me.

Brandon: No, we’re not going to talk about Josh either. We want to talk about your marketing, what you do, how you’re getting leads, you mentioned direct mail, you mentioned Ad Words. I’d love to cover both those things and then whatever else you want to share. Why don’t we start with ad words, what is it and how do you use it?

Brandon Krieg: Great, Ad Words—it’s only one variation of pay per click marketing. There’s a lot variations on it. I know there’s Ad Words, there’s Facebook Ads, there’s Bing Ads, there’s Yahoo, there’s paid placement on any number of good sites going where people are going that need to sell their houses. The basic concept is you market to whatever you’re looking for. If you’re looking for people that have a lot of equity, try to find those terms in your and you’re trying to get these people to click on your link to come to your website to give you their information. Of from that you take that lead and follow.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: What does that cost I mean, presumably, well, I know the answer to the question, but I’ll still ask it. I mean, it’s obviously, it’s going to vary.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: Depending upon the term and how does that price vary? Is it auction system?

Brandon Krieg: Yes, the one that I use primarily is Google Ad words. I have heard very good things about other things, Yellow Pages, lots of other good systems that works for people, but it is an auction based system so based on the individual keyword, it will vary. Some key words are super cheap, five cents, ten cents, honestly for a click. Other ones are super expensive, $20 for click, $30 bucks for click, something like that. That really comes down to you—how do you want to compete? Do you want to compete on the long tail, to use a marketing term? Or do you want you know jump in there and fight with the big dogs on “house,” you know. Then you’re going—you know, you’re going to pay a lot for each click.

Josh: Yes, so presumably, you know we do talk a lot about the mail—direct mail stuff and I don’t think we’ve done enough on the show about the online marketing stuff.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Josh: What type of funnel are you typically trying to create there. In other words, for those people who don’t understand what I’m saying, obviously, you’re going to put out a bunch of advertising. You’re going to expect you know say a hundred people to click on the ad of the hundred people who come to your website through the ad, what percentage of those are going to actually fill out a form and then of those people who’ve filled out the form, what percentage of those people actually have some actionable intelligence on a potential deal?

Brandon Krieg: I’ve heard a pretty good ratio, at least this is for online stuff only. I think all of these methods have different.

Josh: Well, I want to know what you’re experiencing.

Brandon Krieg: Oh sure,so say I get.

Josh: A hundred.

Brandon Krieg: Say I get a hundred, out of that I will get maybe 20 people filling out the form and then from that, I’ll follow up with them. A lot of those people actually kind of drop of f the map. You can follow up with them everyday and they’ll never call you back, but out of that you’ve got you know, five solid leads. Ideally, you know, you can get, you know, three out of that. That are actually actionable that you can get under contract for a good rate so you know, you’re looking at probably one to three percent of your clicks that might actually get you good results.

Brandon: What are you personally paying for a click. Do you usually, I mean like you said it varies, but what do you usually pay?

Brandon Krieg: Sure, I focus a lot on the long tail end so I pay less than a lot of people. Normally, it varies between about a dollar-$2. It’s also cheaper in West Michigan than it is in California.

Josh: Say the high end is $2 times a hundred it’s $200 to acquire one to three leads essentially.

Brandon Krieg: Sure, yes.

Josh: Cool, that’s not bad.

Brandon Krieg: That’s bad at all.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I was surprised at the success honestly. Before I thought it would take a million clicks to get any leads, but once you start getting at it and refining things a little bit, you can have success.

Josh: Yes, okay.

Brandon: I’ve been doing like, I said earlier, I’ve been doing Facebook marketing. Just a little bit. Kind of playing with it.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Brandon: Because I mean, you may not. I enjoy that stuff a lot so what I’ve—I mean what I’ve been doing is I’ve had like five bucks a day. My ad just says like you know I live in Grace Harbor County so I say like.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Brandon: Live in Grace Harbor question mark and then little picture. I have a little picture of the Aberdine sign, which is like Kurt Cobain’s Come As You Are phrase on it.

Brandon Krieg: Uh huh. Oh yes.

Brandon: It says did you—“Looking to sell your house quickly?” Close and whatever, I think I have like you know, seven days cash for your house. Whatever it says, anyway.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Brandon: I’ve had like in the past week, I’m looking at it right now. In the past week, I’ve had about 161 clicks, averaging 40 cents a click, granted a lot of people see the like they’re like, there’s a local ad on Facebook. They’re going to click it just because it’s some you know like.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, that they know.

Brandon: They know so.

Josh: Yeehaw.

Brandon: The clicks are cheaper than you get on Google, but it’s also not as targeted.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Brandon: Out of those—out of those 161 clicks, I’ve had I think 4-5, phone calls, 4-5 website submissions, and looked at a couple. I mean just kind of casually looked at. Nothing solid yet, but anyway, those are just my numbers, it’s not.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, I mean I’d say overall, it’s a pretty low cost, but through across all marketing, I’d each lead is probably between $20-$25 per lead, generally, across all of my market, which is I mean solidly, not like fluff.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: You know.

Brandon: Yes. That makes sense. I am—I probably agree with that quite a bit with mine and so, cool.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Brandon: Col, alright well let’s—so we talked about ad words, a little bit about Facebook, let’s go to direct mail. How many letters are you sending out like what and what kind of response rates are you getting?

Brandon Krieg: I actually am very happy with the response rate that I get here. It’s between 15% and 20%.

Brandon: Wow. Wow.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: That’s really good.

Brandon Krieg: It’s pretty remarkable.

Josh: That’s on your direct mail mailers?

Brandon Krieg: Direct mail mailers, yes.

Josh: Wow.

Brandon: How are you getting that I mean because most people say you know 5% or even 1% is good.

Brandon Krieg: Would be great. Yes so well, the highest that I ever got was with when I was sitting down and handwriting letters. I would write ten to 20 to 30 letters a day, depending on the day, mail them up first class mail when I’m mailing them out. The—now I’ve gone to a printing message. I’m not sure if I should plug away all my secrets, but.

Josh: Oh, there’s no secrets. Come on.

Brandon Krieg: They’re still secrets. It’s actually, I use Jerry Puckett here and I found him on BiggerPockets actually.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: Right on.

Brandon Krieg: He does a lot of the printing. Yes so he’ll print those up then he mails them to me. Then I will put a—it’s a small envelop. I use a first class stamp and it’s a letter. It is printed off of a computer, but it looks like a handwritten style. If that makes sense. It’s not a computer font. It’s like a handwriting kind of font.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: The list that I’ve been using is from ListSource and I focus a lot on absentee owners around the bigger cities that are here.

Josh: Right on. Right on. That’s been the most effective.

Brandon Krieg: That.

Josh: The most effective was the handwritten and you’ve moved over to the printing of the direct.

Brandon Krieg: Yes. I think was a good decision because I just ran out of time to.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Do that on them. I just did not have enough hours in the day.

Josh: How much mail are you putting out now every week? Month? Whatever it is.

Brandon Krieg: Yes. When I was doing it, I actually started small with only about 300 a month give or take and that was enough to keep my pipeline full through that message, which was pretty remarkable. I know, listening, to Justin, he sends out, you know, many more than that to get those same results so I feel I might just be in a lucky pocket.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Here, yes.

Brandon: Yes, makes sense. Well, cool so direct mail, Google Ad Words, I mean are you doing anything else. Do I mean have a car—sticker on your car?

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: Anything like that?

Brandon Krieg: I don’t have a sticker on my car, but I do signs. I do yard signs. Some people call them bandit signs. It’s okay so I do that. It works and I’ve sort of figured out the areas where they’re okay with it and the areas where they’re not okay with it.

Josh: Let’s talk about that, Brandon.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, sure.

Josh: Them being okay with it, being the places where it’s legal to place them?

Brandon Krieg: Exactly. That’s the more technical way where it’s actually legal to put these up and where it is not legal to put those up so.

Josh: Got you.

Brandon Krieg: Obviously, in—if sitting with everything else that I do, if it’s not legal or not good, I’m not going to do it. I’m going to pull them down, but they do work.

Josh: In terms of finding out where it’s—where it’s Kosher. I mean how does someone do that? Do you just call the city and say, “Hey I want to do some marketing and this one of the things that I want to do?” What do you do?

Brandon Krieg: Yes, that’s a good first step is go and then you tell people and say, “Hey, this is what I want to do. Is this okay?” A lot of times, a lot of responses is, “If it’s okay with the property owner. It’s okay with us.” Then it’s another follow up call to wherever you’re going to put it saying, “Hey, is this okay if I put a sign here?” You know, sometimes you’ll float them a few dollars and then they’re okay with it. Other people say, “Who are you? Get away from me. I never want to hear from you again.”

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: When you follow up with them and even with that, you put them down and you get all the permission and the world and sometimes they’ll come back through and say “Hey, this isn’t allowed.” You’re like, “I talked to this person and this person and they said it was fine.” Once, you know if that happens and somebody says, “Hey, don’t put it here.” Then I stop.

Josh: Yes. Yes so you’re instead of putting right of ways, and street corners, you’re focusing them on actually property versus city property.

Brandon Krieg: Or you know even with that, even a store, a local store, there’s a lot of local stores here in Wash, Michigan. It’s not chains all over the place and you try to do a little bit targeted where you know, a local Ace Hardware might be fine with it. You try to you know do it a little bit more focused where you know, if somebody’s going to work on their house, they’re going to be going to a hardware store.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Getting it there is a good thing. It’s a good area to shoot for.

Josh: Yes and let me just put this out for everyone listening. We at BiggerPockets are pretty big advocates of doing things the way and doing them legally. You know, if you go out and you start hammering neighborhoods with bandit signs, you know, illegally, you’re just making a bad image for yourself. I mean, personally, I hate bandit signs.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Josh: I don’t care if anyone should use them, I think you know, I really think they litter neighborhoods. I think they’re awful, but I’m going to say, you know, if you’re thinking about it, make sure you do it and legally.

Brandon Krieg: Do it the right way, yes.

Josh: Do it the right way. If you’re not, you know, I don’t know. You know, I get a lot of people who don’t like me because of my position on these things, but I think that there’s plenty of other credible ways to market than to go out and illegally put up signs and say, “Hey, how do I put up a sign so people don’t take them down.” Well, they’re taking them down because you’re doing it the wrong way. You’re breaking the law, don’t put them up.

Brandon Krieg: Right,

Josh: How do I use and get a fake number to do this, well, if you need a fake number, something’s wrong with what you’re doing.

Brandon: Probably. Yes and I completely agree with that. You know that’s why I said lawn signs at first because you know, the way that I do it, they’re not bandit signs because they’re okay.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: In those areas and it’s a big thing. In this particular area, in this particular markets they are not uncommon for any number of services from excavating, we’re going to, we do siding, dry—all kinds of things use it in this particular area.

Josh: Sure.

Brandon: Yes.

Josh: Right on. Any other strategies or is that pretty much oh yes.

Brandon Krieg: There’s the—yes, I do networking, I’ve found leads and deals through BiggerPockets so definitely do that.

Josh: Nice.

Brandon Krieg: Follow up with people. It’s just, “Hey, I’ve got a lead in this state.” I’ve thrown deals out to other people that other people have jumped on and I’ve accepted deals from others. BiggerPockets is an excellent networking source. I’ve used it a lot, I do a lot of similar networking at local Real Estate Investor Meetings and that’s good. That generates a lot of leads. Then I do other things like Craigslist and stuff like that do.

Brandon: Cool. Cool. Alright, well let’s move on to—why don’t we talk about cash buyers a little bit because you said you wholesale some deals.

Brandon Krieg: Great.

Brandon: You already talked about earlier how you found the one. Do you have another good method or what should people be looking for when they want to know how to wholesale a deal to somebody?

Brandon Krieg: Sure, I think a big thing to remember about cash buyers are that you don’t need a million of them to have a successful business with wholesaling. Generally, I’ve found that just a few solid people is really what you need to keep your lifeblood flowing and in that area.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: My style is, I know some people and maybe these message work great for them, but they’ll find a lot of houses, get them all under contract and then shoot them out to a million and a half people and it’s a big list of 20 homes or something like that. With me, what I do is I do a lot of talking to people, sitting down, having coffee, figuring out really what they want. That could be—I like this street. I don’t like that street. This is my price rage, I want three bedrooms only, never two. Whenever I find a house—what I—then my job is to you know, gather that information that I know about the people that I’ve met and say, “Hey, this person is looking for a house.” It does fit this. Then I’ll put a really customized package for one specific buyer rather than a big blast style.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I think that’s a little differently than some people do it.

Josh: Yes, I mean I think that’s a smart way to do it. You know, you basically build a database and establish a set of criteria and pretty much list who wants what and if something comes in that matches, you know, person A through G then you send you send it to A through G and you don’t need to send it to everybody, there’ s no reason to waste your time and energy on it.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, yes and I think that’s the big thing. Finding cash buyers for me has been a long and slow process. It’s really developing relationships. I think that that’s the big key. If somebody you know, if you’re able to work with someone that you can trust on either end, either they trust me, I trust them then you can get a lot of things done, but that’s—going to these meetings, sitting down with people, having real honest conversations without, you know, fluff, being honest about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You know, all of those make such a huge difference in the end.

Josh: You just kind of got to go with what works for you and it sounds like you’ve got some good ideas here. How do you decide—you know, you find a property. How do you decide what you’re going—if you you’re going to flip it or wholesale it, you know. It would be easier to wholesale, but maybe I should flip this one and go throw a little more money. I mean what’s—how does that process work for you?

Brandon Krieg: That process is definitely on a case by case basis. This is actually what were getting into. One of the weaknesses of where I’m at right now is when I first started, I just sort of jumped and said, “Okay, just get things done.” You know methodology systems, pah, who needs those you know. Just go and so I am now running into the problems with just go method.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: For instance, right now, if another deal crossed my desk, that was even a great flip, I would have to say, “Okay, I just can’t take on another project right now.”

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I have overloaded myself.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: For me, it’s—right now—it’s not a perfect answer, but it’s a debate between, okay, how much, you know, using a computer term, how much bandwidths do I have to actually handle this project. Do I have you know, where are my contractors, at etcetera, etcetera. In the future, what I would like to do is just have a system going. Okay, alright, well I’ve got three deals going right now, that’s my max time to wholesale them. I also—if it looks like it’s better as a rental, I just go straight to wholesaling those because rentals and property management kind of thing is not something that I’m doing at this time.

Josh: Got you.

Brandon Krieg: Not yet, anyway.

Brandon: Do you want to get into that eventually.

Brandon Krieg: I do. I do, I know that you know, it’s a really good piece of advice actually. Just jump into the thing that you want to be doing eventually. I think several good reliable posters have said that seems like really good advice, but with me, being able to do this as a job for now while learning a lot about houses and getting into that eventually seems like a really good middle ground so.

Josh: Yes, I agree, yes so you’re at this position of scale, you’re at the, “Hey I can handle things, kind of on my own, but there’s any kind of scale ability that’s required, I’m in trouble.”

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: It seems being—seems to me, we are the queen of England.

Brandon Krieg: The royal we, yes.

Josh: The royal we, no—it seems to me that you know, you’re probably at that point where yes, it’s time to kind of hunker down and focus on you know, how to build the systems for yourself and how to you know, get those team players into place.

Brandon Krieg: Definitely.

Josh: To get you to that next step and so what is like because I think we’ve talked to a lot of guys of were, you know, “Hey, I’m getting one or two deals, it’s awesome.” We’ve talked to a ton of guys, who’ve said, “Hey, I’ve got my systems.”

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: I don’t think we’ve actually talked to anyone who’s where you are, which is I’m stuck, I can’t kind of get to the—well I’m not saying that you said that.

Brandon Krieg: Oh yes.

Josh: I can’t get to that next deal because I really don’t know—I’m not saying you don’t how to scale, but you know, I’m at the point where I haven’t started to.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: What is that like and what is kind of going through your head right now as you’re facing that?

Brandon Krieg: Well, for me it was an epiphany moment because I was working on this rehab that I’m doing right now. I’m sitting there, painting trim and this is a old house, it’s a hundred years old and working on this thing, I’m thinking I am so wasting time right now. This is not what I should be doing. This is not efficient at all and so this epiphany moment for me and then saying, “Okay, well, in that case what does it look like?”

Getting, doing the first ones, it was like, “Okay, what I want to do is make you know, basically the top dollar possible and what that means is me personally doing as much as I can with every deal.” If I can lay floor, I’m going to lay floor. If I can finish dry wall, I’m going to finish that so now, I have to look at it as, “Okay, what am I actually good at? What are my real strengths and how do I bring in people efficiently to really—that can do the stuff better.”

Third—absolutely people that can lay floor faster and easier than me. It—painting, you know, even you know, outsourcing the direct mail that I mentioned. I mean that was a huge help so it’s basically taking these little pieces and fitting them into a system that works. I’ve started doing little things, but that’s definitely the next step of the growth is saying, “Okay, where do I pull myself out of this system?”

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Because the less that I’m in it everyday.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: The more that the overall system can succeed.

Josh: You know, it’s interesting, as I sit here, I think about my own business, I think about BiggerPockets and I think about this show and grant it a lot of this show is very very specific to real estate, but we are, you know, we being the audience and we being the folks that we’re interviewing. We’re all kind of small business people right? We’re all.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Josh: Every real estate investor is a small business person. Every real estate agent is a small business person.

Brandon Krieg: Absolutely.

Josh: You know, everybody kind of faces the same issues in terms of really figuring where they are, where their company is and what they’re good at, what they’re not good at. Who to put into place.

Brandon Krieg: I think that I read this book, probably six years ago and I’ve read it a couple times since then. It’s E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber.

Brandon: Yes

Brandon Krieg: It’s a really good book that talks about exactly this thing. Essentially, you’re working in your business instead of working on your business.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Basically, you’re baking the pies instead of creating the systems so the pies can get baked without you being there.

Josh: Stop painting trim.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Exactly, exactly. Stop painting trim. It’s not a good use of your time. You know.

Brandon: Wait, are you yelling at me.

Brandon Krieg: No I’m yelling at [Inaudible][58:12].

Josh: No, I was actually going to say stop climbing on the windowsill and putting you in the rain.

Brandon: Yes, thank you Ben Leybovich. Ben always yes.

Brandon Krieg: I should probably reread that book just to remind myself.

Brandon: Yes, that’s actually one of those books, I think you should reread every—kind of like—I say reread Rich Dad, Poor Dad every year.

Brandon Krieg: Oh yes, yes.

Brandon: Like reread E-Myth every year. I think you just got to be reminded of those things.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, that’s a great.

Brandon: Yes, cool. Hey, why don’t we—actually no. I have to ask one more question before we go to the Fire Round.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Brandon: That question is, I ask every single person pretty much who does rehabs, how are you finding good contractors?

Brandon Krieg: References. All references. That’s—I also use Angie’s list. If you guys have heard of that, it’s a super cheap subscription service. They have lots of—if you’re stuck. You ask around your local real estate club and you just got nobody—no idea, I’d recommend going there, but my best success comes from, “Hey I use this guy. I know this guy. He’s really good.”

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: That’s both online and in person, but getting a reference is pretty much the end all be all for me.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon: Yes, I was just thinking based on that. I’ve never actually done this, but I’m going to do it today is just go put on my Facebook wall, hey does anybody have a good recommendation for a plumber in Grace Harbor. I’ll just write that.

Brandon Krieg: Definitely.

Brandon: I’ll report back next week on what I find.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, that will be great.

Brandon: We’ll see if that works.

Josh: Oh boy, I’m super excited.

Brandon: I’ll let you know.

Josh: Can’t wait to find out.

Brandon: I know I got keep people you know.

Brandon Krieg: The plumbing update.

Brandon: Yes. Alright, now we’re officially moving to the.

Announcer: It’s time for the Fire Round.

Brandon: The Fire Round. These questions all come form the BiggerPockets forums, which you can get to at BiggerPockets.com/Forums, fancy. Alright, number one, I’m a college graduate, just got out of college looking for my first investment. How should I get started?

Brandon Krieg: For your first investment, I would say try to find somebody that has done the kind of investment that interests you the most. Talk to that person. Find the pros, find the cons see if after actually digging in a little bit, it’s what you do want to do. If you find out that it is, try to get good help. On my first one, I was at my friend that I partnered with had already been a landlord for awhile. He already knew a lot about these basic house fixes and things to do and things to look for and so getting people smarter than you around you is a very very good thing.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon: Good. That’s good to have.

Josh: You know, again, that can be applied to pretty much every component of business too.

Brandon Krieg: Absolutely, I am not that smart and I will take all the help I can get.

Josh: There you. At least you admit it.

Brandon Krieg: Hey, we all know our weaknesses.

Josh: Exactly. Alright cool so when wholesaling properties off MLS, how do you get around the 60-day hold requirement that some banks have. You know, have you run into this yet?

Brandon Krieg: I can’t actually speak to this because I have never wholesaled a property off of the MLS. I have only worked with sellers directly. I’ve never wholesaled a property off the MLS so I couldn’t tell you one way or another.

Josh: Have you bought—I’ll kind of adjust the question then. Have you bought any like—have you bought any properties off the MLS for your investing.

Brandon Krieg: No, I have not. It’s all been in person.

Josh: Okay, let me ask you another question. Alright, have all these been pretty much direct deals with the seller or are you working without real estate agents as go betweens?

Brandon Krieg: Directly with the seller. I think that this is something that I will work on and add to the repertoire as working more with real estate agents. Actually, I love real estate agents.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: They’re great and I.

Josh: You’ve never bought through an agent, presumably you’ve sold through agents.

Brandon Krieg: I have sold through agents, yes. I’ve never bought through an agent so.

Josh: Fascinating.

Brandon Krieg: I think that’s another really good next step for me.

Josh: Wow, that’s I mean that’s pretty impressive to go that many deals without having to purchase through an agent so that’s pretty cool.

Brandon: It just shows that there’s a lot of ways. I mean I’ve hardly bought any properties that were not MLS. Almost everything that I’ve done, flipping or wholesaling or multifamily have almost all been MLS. There’s been a couple direct seller, but not many so.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Brandon: It just shows there’s different ways to do it. You can succeed at either one so.

Josh: Exactly. Exactly.

Brandon: It’s what’s good in your market and what are you good at so alright, next. How would you suggest finding a credible wholesaler that understands leaving some meat on the bone for rehab buyers.

Josh: That’s a good question. I like that.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: That is an excellent question. I’ve both worked with other wholesalers and wholesale deals myself. A big part of it is relationships again, to me it’s all about that. Finding somebody who is not going to just try to suck every dollar out of the deal. I’ve been on both sides. I’ve been on the rehab side, I’ve been on the wholesaling side so for me, it’s just talking to people and really analyzing a deal and saying. If it’s too high, saying like, alright, dude, what are you looking at here, like can you get this any lower because these are where my numbers are at. Here’s where I’d be comfortable with it. I don’t what you actually have it under contract for, but and if you get somebody who’s constantly just trying to peg you as high as possible, that’s not somebody I’d want to work with long term.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I mean in some cases it’s just that’s as low as the seller would go and that’s the deal and it’s just no deal, but if you’ve really got a guy that’s trying to milk you—it’s kind of like, yes, I don’t really know.

Brandon: Yes.

Josh: Yes. Yes, cool, last question is how would you suggest someone get rid of cigarette smoke. You dealt with that on your first deal.

Brandon Krieg: Excellent.

Josh: What do you need to do?

Brandon Krieg: Excellent, rip out all of the carpet and the pad, absolutely, get it out of there, day one. That was the first thing we did and that removed 75% of the smell, probably. After that, you’ll want to use something like Kilz, a latex based paint that’s specifically made as an odor killer.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: You’re going to have to do a lot. You or somebody else and you know, getting these systems going.

Josh: Yes, there you go.

Brandon Krieg: I will have to do—have to do a lot of washing and scrubbing for for anything that you want to keep. Say you want to keep the cabinets or something, you’re going to spend a lot of time on those cabinets because that smoke is just going to seep in everywhere so get professional grade cleaning products. Talk to people, the cheap stuff is not going help and you’re just going to want to ram your head into the wall. Also, open the windows, keep the windows open as much as you can. Run fans all day and at some point it’s just a time battle. You keep doing this stuff over and over again, but if you keep it all flowing then eventually it’ll go.

Josh: Alright, so I’ve got a—probably what’s a stupid question because I’ve never had to clean house out of cigarette smell. Say, I would presume, say I started in the kitchen.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: Cleaning in the kitchen, right.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Josh: Well, we get all the carpets out of the house, that’s the quick and easy, but every other room still stinks even the rooms that you pulled this out of.

Brandon Krieg: Sure.

Josh: My assumption is you start in one room and as you kind of clear the stank out of that room, do you have to kind of seal it off so the smell doesn’t leech back in and get all over everything or is it—it almost feels like it would be this never ending battle or is it just little by little as long as you’ve got kind of the air flowing constantly, you’re okay?

Brandon Krieg: To me it’s a little by little unless you are able to create a vacuum seal somehow. It’s air, I mean it’s going to get there and it’s going to get in so you just do the best you can and keep at it.

Brandon: I’ve always found that like ni—.

Brandon Krieg: We couldn’t seal it off.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I mean we were scrubbing the walls and it looks like coffee right down the wall.

Brandon: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: I mean, it’s disgusting, you know.

Brandon: I think like 99% of the smell comes from the walls—I mean like obviously, like the carpet.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: It’s not in the air as much as much as it is on things.

Brandon Krieg: It’s on things.

Brandon: If you get it off the things.

Brandon Krieg: Deep scrubs.

Brandon: Yes, deep scrubs.

Brandon Krieg: Magic eraser is a great tool.

Brandon: Yes, it is, that is a good—that works well for things, yes.

Brandon Krieg: Yes.

Brandon: Yes, they have that little mat. Have you used that yet, Josh? The little magic eraser? It’s like—I don’t know.

Brandon: Every rental I have ever been in has crayons on the wall. I assume every kid does that.

Josh: My point is no, no, I’m kidding, but no listen, my kids don’t draw on the walls, cause you know. We put the fear of God into them.

Brandon Krieg: Fear of God into them so yes.

Brandon: Alright, nice, nice. Alright well, hey let’s move on to the final section of the show, which we like to call the.

Announcer: Famous Four.

Brandon: Alright, The Famous Four, these are questions we ask everybody on the show so you know what they are and I’m going to throw them right at you. First one, what is your favorite real estate book?

Brandon Krieg: This one is a really hard one, I read a lot of real estate books. My current favorite is Flip. It’s part of the millionaire Real Estate Investor Series. It’s Clay, Villani, Villani and Davis. Gary Keller of course is you know, involved. That one is very good. I want to—next up on my reading list is actually the one by J. Scott. I’m sure I’m going to get a lot from that one too so.

Josh: Yes, good book.

Brandon Krieg: Those books that are really nitty gritty detail. Those were really big helps for me. I mean there’s I mean there’s a million and one good books.

Brandon: Yes. Well cool.

Josh: Yes, right on. What about your favorite business book non-real estate?

Brandon Krieg: Non-real estate, well my favorite like non-anything is probably Lord of the Rings, which is awesome.

Josh: Nice.

Brandon Krieg: More in this type.

Josh: Nerd alert.

Brandon Krieg: Yes, oh, oh, I am a hard nerd. You don’t have to worry about that one so the is actually not even a book. It’s I mentioned it earlier, it’s Lead the Field by Earl Nightingale. It’s a really good. It’s a series of audio tapes, actually. It’s recorded, I think back in the ‘80s. It’s really just about you know, your outset and your look on life. It’s really good. I probably listen to that one at least once a year.

Brandon: Nice, I’ll have to look for that in Amazon and I’ll put a link to those in the show notes at BiggerPockets.com/Show69 and Josh, next question. You.

Josh: Yes, what about hobbies? What do you do for fun?

Brandon Krieg: I do a lot of things for fun. I’m a lacrosse coach in high school.

Josh: Oh cool.

Brandon Krieg: High school lacrosse coach, that’s great. Actually, I have a game today.

Brandon: Nice.

Josh: Good luck.

Brandon: Good luck.

Josh: Maybe you’ll tell us next week how the score went.

Brandon Krieg: Absolutely, I can talk about lacrosse all day.

Josh: Then you could tell me how your teeth brushing went.

Brandon: I feel like I’m getting made fun of here. Is that? Is anybody else noticing that? I don’t know.

Brandon Krieg: Oh not at all, it’s ridiculous.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon Krieg: Other than that, I really love to travel. I travel seeing friends. My friends are scattered all around the country. I love to travel. I like games of all kind, board games, video games, like I said, giant nerd alert. I really to read.

Josh: Dungeons and Dragons.

Brandon Krieg: I actually haven’t gotten into that, but I hear it’s awesome.

Brandon: He’s not that, not that nerdy, Josh, come on.

Josh: You know we did have one of our guests as Dungeons and Dragons fan. I think it was Don.

Brandon: Was it? Oh yes, I think it was.

Josh: Yes, I think it was.

Brandon Krieg: I hear it’s a ton of fun.

Josh: Yes, I played it when I was you know younger.

Brandon: That explains a lot. Anyway, so games.

Josh: That’s okay, lots and lots of cool stuff.

Brandon: Cool, alright, final question from me. What do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from those who never get started or fail?

Brandon Krieg: To me, I thought about this. I figure you guys had your Famous Four so I could throw mine out here. At the same time.

Brandon: Do it.

Brandon Krieg: I tried to boil it down to one and I couldn’t so the Four Elements. The first one that I really see is courage, which is you know, your belated acts in spite of fear. You know, even if you’re afraid, you can still move forward. The next is knowledge, figuring out what to do and when to do it. You can be as courageous as you want, but if you run straight into a swamp, you know, you’re not going—some quick sand, you’re not going to get out too fast. Really important one is persistence. Just keeping at it even though it seems like you just want to quit like I’ve had that experience several times. Then last element, probably the most important one is just faith. Knowing that as rough as this gets, if you can focus on it and keep driving towards it. Faith, that you will ultimately accomplish your goal.

Brandon: Cool.

Josh: There you go.

Brandon: Well said.

Josh: Nice, well cool man so before we let you go, where can people find more information about you—link up with you.

Brandon Krieg: Excellent, yes, the BiggerPockets profile, I love that. I use it all the time so shoot me a message, things like that. My company’s website is TheHoneyBeeHomes.com, T-H-E at the beginning. HoneyBeeHomes.com is I think some realtor in Texas, that is not me.

Josh: Nice.

Brandon Krieg: My picture’s right on there so it shouldn’t be too hard to find. That’s my website and my email address is my first name, [email protected]

Josh: Cool, there you go.

Brandon Krieg: Any lunch, calls, Skype dates, whatever, no big deal. I like talking to people.

Brandon: You are going to regret that.

Brandon Krieg: I know.

Josh: Yes, you are going to regret that by the way, but okay, listen. It’s all good man. It’s all good. The 24,000 people listening to this show, might all decide to.

Brandon Krieg: Call me tomorrow.

Josh: Do not everybody inundate Brandon with email just for fun. Alright, man, well listen. It’s been a pleasure. Really enjoyed listening to you and hearing about your story and hopefully folks learned a thing or two from you. Of course, this is show 69 of the BiggerPockets podcast and anyone listening can check out the show notes at BiggerPockets.com/Show69 where they can ask, Brandon, not Turner, but Mr. Brandon Krieg here, questions that they’ve got about today’s interview and otherwise, listen, that’s really it.

If you’re listening to the shows and you’re not yet connecting with us on BiggerPockets, please jump on the forums, get involved, get engaged, the more you do that, the better you feel. I don’t know and you know, just get involved in the community. I think you’ll find a lot of value in doing that. Otherwise, you know again, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, G+, and all the usual major social networks and get out there. Make things happen guys, network, connect, interact, learn, and be successful and share your stories with the rest of us. Let’s all help each other thrive. Thank you for listening and we’ll see next week at Show 70 of the BiggerPockets podcast. Thanks so much. I’m Josh Dorkin, signing off.

You’re listening to BiggerPockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors, large and small. If you’re here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you’re in the right place.

Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com, your home for real estate investing online.